This is the next-to-last post in this series. Readers are critiquing the opening of the first chapter in a novel of mine, We the Enemy. While it is under consideration at a couple of publishers, the first chapter had never received a close critique. I've been getting very valuable input. Here's more.
Sandra comments:
"When the call came a week before their regular get-together, all the gravelly voice of the most powerful man on the planet had said was, 'We got bidness.' Meaning trouble…but what kind of trouble?"
I'm not a fan of the "bidness," though I've read your comments on it and see where you're coming from. My question re the opening is: why the call? It's a week before they're supposed to get together anyway. The President doesn't ask Karl to do anything. (*All* he says is "We got bidness.") Karl doesn't rush over to the White House. No chain of events gets set in motion. Why did the President call? Just to make Karl worry? Did Karl ask, "What kind of bidness?" and the President hang up? There's a lot of information missing there. (Sure there's a lot of information missing from just one paragraph. Its purpose was to establish that Karl [now Kurt] was close to the President and that the President called him about a problem. Seems to me that was accomplished. Anyway, the whole thing has now been cut. RR)
You immediately segue into the Rose Garden scene. It wasn't clear to me that they were walking through the Rose Garden
-- for awhile I thought they had walked out there and were sitting in some chairs. I'd love to see some early detail that convinces me we're actually there-- something only someone who's been to the Rose Garden might know-- as well as a touch of stage action that tells me what's going on (e.g. "They passed the blue whatever that Jackie Kennedy had planted, and the spot where Tricia Nixon had gotten married.") You have stage action later, but in those first few paragraphs I was adrift. (Good comment. Has been attended to…I think. RR)During the scene, we see that Karl is a confidant of the President's. I'm not sure if Karl is the president of the NRA or not. He's somewhat rude
-- I mean, really, dropping your litter on the lawn! (He is crude. RR)-- and nervous at the sight of the Secret Service men. He doesn't seem politically astute. (He isn't. RR) Why is it news to him that the President might lose a Western state? Surely the press and blogworld have been speculating as such. Karl reads the papers (or should), is a political insider, has operated in Washington for (several?) years. Nothing the President says should be a surprise until the part about riding herd on the Attorney General. (Never occurred to me to make him an expert. But have added something to make it understandable that he's not totally in the loop. RR)Three last comments: I'm wondering about your POV. The informal asides
-- ("Meaning trouble..." and "Ah-ha" and "When's he gonna get to it") are jarring. I don't feel quite in Karl's hot POV, but the asides should be putting me there.Also, your worldbuilding, while intriguing, raises some issues: there are at least three unusual things going on. One, that the world has "turned its back" on America. (Not so different from now. Much of it did when Iraq happened, and many have not turned back. RR) Given the economic, military, cultural and political ties we have, I find that odd.
Two, that Oregon has found some way to get rid of guns that is both successful and legal (and conveniently unspecified!). (That a state is "getting rid of guns" is a big clue
-- I think-- that this is future tense. And it's unspecified because I want you to want to know about it-- ridding our society of lethal weapons is a key component in this story. RR)Three, that Independents have grown so much in popularity that they're about to win many seats in Congress. I'm also not sure that an American political group would call itself "The Allies," and don't know if they do, or if that's what their enemies call them. (If you look around, American groups call themselves virtually anything. And the organization in an alliance. It is all to be revealed. Anyway, I think this falls in the area of author prerogative. But it's good that you raise the issue
-- caused me to think about it. RR) It's not that these couldn't happen; but so many of them are dropped so casually into the narrative that I'm not sure I trust the author to pull them off. (Well, you would have to keep reading to find out if he can pull it off. No novel can be complete in the first 1,000 or so words. I figure my job here it to raise questions, not answer them. Also, they are "dropped casually" in to the narrative because they are the reality, the norm for these people, and to spotlight them at this early stage would, for me, intrude on the sense of reality that I'm hoping to slowly create. If you ever read one of my novels, you'll find that nothing goes unexplained or unrevealed. But a writer has to plant seeds if he is to grow a story, and the opening of a novel should be littered with seeds, at least one of which should begin to sprout by the end of the chapter. RR)
Thank you for the help. Next post, the revised chapter.
RR
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© 2005 Ray Rhamey